Jharkhand hospital performs manual blood donation sans tests

As per laws concerning blood transfusion, a donor cannot be asked to donate blood directly at the hospital; the donation can take place only at a blood bank or a blood donation camp after performing due tests.

Stills of video footage in which a blood bank staff is seen collecting blood from a girl at a private hospital violating the blood transfusion law at Kanke in Ranchi(HT Photo)

In a blatant violation of safe blood transfusion laws, a private hospital in Jharkhand’s Ranchi on Tuesday allegedly risked the life of a blood donor and recipient by manually taking blood from the donor at the hospital premises and transfusing it to the recipient without proper examination, a sting operation by students of the National University of Study and Research in Law (NUSRL) has revealed.

As per laws concerning blood transfusion, a donor cannot be asked to donate blood directly at the hospital; the donation can take place only at a blood bank or a blood donation camp after performing due tests.

The video has captured a man –said to be from Jharkhand Blood Bank— manually taking blood from an NUSRL student at one Kanke General Hospital, in utter violation of the norms.

No Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) test was performed to detect possible infections in the blood of the donor. Neither did the technician from the blood bank perform any Transfusion Transmitted Infection (TTI) test, said Atul Gera, founder of NGO Life Savers.

“This is a blatant violation of the laws. Such unsafe blood transfusions have infected people with HIV in Jharkhand before. Patients are dying, but the concerned bodies have turned a blind eye to this illegal practice,” said Gera, who also happens to be the president of Jharkhand Thalassemia Foundation.

However, hospital owner Shambhu Prasad Singh said that the hospital usually asked donors to donate blood at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS). “In emergency cases, we summon technicians from the Jharkhand Blood Bank to the hospital and allow them to take blood from the donor after obtaining his/her due consent in a bid to save life,” Singh said.

“This is only done in emergency cases. The technician is asked to bring all the necessary instruments to the hospital and take the blood from the donor,” he said.

Between October 2014 to March 2016, around 2000 Indians were infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after getting botched blood transfusions, says data shared by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO). Among the 2234 infected people, 17 were from Jharkhand, the NACO data said.

However, state drug controller Ritu Sahay denied that the practice was common in Jharkhand.

“It is not a common practice here. Blood donation can happen even in a hospital but only under supervision of a licensed or a government blood bank,” Sahay said, adding that necessary actions would be taken against the hospital if the said procedure of blood donation was used.

“One of our students had gone to donate blood for a relative of a staff in our college. We spoke to the NGO and came up with the idea of recording the illegal practice,” said Shaurya Krishna, convener of the human rights and advocacy cell of the law university.